SoV is an elite evil gaming guild/clan, which has been around on the internet since January 2000, making it one of the oldest gaming guilds in existence, and certainly the oldest in any game we're playing now.

We're evil not in the satanic sense, but in the sense we do whatever we need to do to get whatever it is we want.

We are also one of only a handful of guilds run completely democratically, elections are held every six months or whenever a previous leader may step down. All members share equal rights and have equal say in guild decisions and debate. And unlike other guilds you may find, we have proven to make this work, for years. No one person can take total control or hijack the guild, we have long since learned how to stop this (the hard way).

Having existed for so long, SoV has accumulated a vast history and lore with all sorts of stories, as well as countless rivals and enemies. There are tales of treachery, corruption, greed, heroism, ravaging wars, loyalty, love, beer, and the list of clichés goes on.

Our community has thousands of members come and go, with dozens of active members at any given time, for any given branch. Our older forums had over 500,000 posts prior to sucking it up and buying our own domain, with our current forums having over 300,000 posts.

We also offer guides to help give players the edge in game. Currently we have dozens of guides, but most of them are private - you'd have to join to see them. Our members have a tendency to obsess over a game until they master it, and share what works and doesn't work with other members. We also have a tendency to cut contrary to the established meta-game in any given game, and have a reputation of being very hard to defeat. An example of a typical SoV guide can be found here (Gunz guide).

Joining SoV is, relatively speaking, simple and straight forward. You must post a petition to join us in the petition center, in the game you play. A petition is a fancy word for an application, and isn't much different than you might fill out when applying for a job, a boat loan, or to get grandma out on bail.

This should be enough information for most people to be able to join, though I know from experience that it is not. If your IQ is above room temperature, it probably is; so I'll save you a wall of text and direct you where you need to go now:

If this isn't enough information for you, I'll expand on the process a bit.

First is why we do it. Why would a gaming guild require you to apply to join? Mostly it's to ensure quality. It's not that we don't think you would be a quality member who joins us and revolutionizes the guild, we would love that. It's that we're democratic and we're one of the few guilds out there where one member COULD revolutionize the guild. It has happened before, and gods-willing it should happen again.

Making you apply means that our members can make a good hard (or soft) look at you and deem you're worthy. Nobody joins us without knowing some of our members, and the petition process forces you to meet and greet a few of them. Very often members will ask you to contact them in order to join.

This serves two purposes. The first is so you know people in our community, so you don't feel left out or alienated. Remember, if you get accepted this forum belongs to you as much as anybody else in the guild. The second is so members get a chance to see your character, something a straight petition often fails to do. Winning over people is relatively easy. If you act crazy around some, they'll love you. Others if you fake loving football/BBQ/Dancing with the stars, they'll adore you. Or you can be genuine, and they'll love you for that too.

Remember though, not everybody gets accepted. We don't have any set quota of how many people we can accept, so don't worry about that. But how boring would it be if everybody who applied for Harvard got in? That's rhetorical, don't answer that. We are a great guild, so we need our members to be great. You don't have to be great right now, but if you prove to our members you can become great, then that's good enough. If you're great now, you might want to check your ego at the door you'll probably get accepted with no problem.

In order to get accepted, you need people to vote on your petition. Each realm (game we play) requires a certain number of points to join, and that number can easily be found in the topics I listed near the beginning of this wall of text. It's you're responsibility to get voters (you're joining us, after all). Most members love to vote and love to interact with prospective members, so it's typically very easy to find people.

Specific values for voters break down like this:

Non-members are worth 0 points, barely worth mentioning but sometimes they vote to be jerks.

Worshippers and non-realm knights (they play a game for SoV that isn't the one you are joining in) are worth 1 point

Members may also vote for less than what they can be worth, for example very often Kai-gods would only vote 2 of their 4 points for you. Color of their rank is a good way to tell the difference between ranks. Dark green are worshippers, green are knights, gold are semi-gods and demi-gods, and yellow are god, jotun, and kai-gods.

After you get enough votes to get accepted, your petition will become pending for 3 days. This will let our members who haven't been able to be around a chance to catch up on it. It's mostly a formality, but there have been cases where people would self-destruct during this time.

Once your petition is accepted, you become a worshipper, which is a trial member for one month. At the end of the month, our current full members in your realm will decide if they want to accept you as a full member (a knight), or give you the boot. Being active in-game and on the forums usually makes for an easy knighthood. Disappearing from one or both might hurt your chances. Once you are knighted, you are a full member for as long as you wish to be. Really the only way we'd end up kicking you is if we catch you hacking, something we don't tolerate. You are a member for life and are free to partake of everything we have to offer and our glorious muffin basket.

It's a little convoluted to a non-member, but here is the gist of it, it breaks down into different tiers.

Adherents, or members of the guild in-game and only in-game. They have absolutely no rights or voting rights, but are allowed to wear the guild tag. If they want to advance in the guild in any way, they must post a petition to join (outlined above).

Worshippers, or trial members of the guild. They can vote on petitions and certain other things. At the end of 30 days, a vote is held in private (the worshipper never sees it, unlike a petition). There are three possible outcomes: they are knighted, and become a Knight (see below), fail their knighthood (and are kicked from the guild outright), or the vote is delayed (for people we might like, but have extenuating circumstances.

Knights, or full members of the guild. They can vote on anything. Unless they royally screw up, they are members for life. If they go inactive for 10 years and come back, they're still a knight. This is the highest meaningful rank.

Templars - a subset of Knights with more resonsibilities.

Priests, another subset of Knights with very specific tasks such as record keeping or mediating disputes among members

Low gods, or leaders of a branch of the guild. They are responsible for leading us in a certain game (like Guild Wars 2 or Rappelz), and answer directly to the Knights of the guild. They are elected every 6 months, and any Knight is eligible to run.

High gods, the leader of the ENTIRE guild and a few past gods known as Kai-gods that serve as advisors. The god answers directly to the Knights of the guild, and are responsible for setting the tone and direction of the guild.